Places To Go In Hogtown
(Or: Dealing with the nightlife)
Gainesville has a lot of interesting, fun, cool, and weird places to go.
This includes clubs, bars, restraunts, and such as well as many beautiful
natural landscapes, historical sites, etc.
Food
There are numerous places to eat in Gainesville, both locally-run and part
of national chains. Here are some of the better places that are worth a
visit.
Leonardo's Pizza By The Slice
Leo's is practically a landmark in Gainesville. They've been doing business
here for over twenty years and have always been very popular, primarily
due to the really great pizza you can get. For less than two bucks you
can get a thick slab of oven-baked pizza that some people actually find
hard to finish. They also carry various forms of pasta (the Baked Ziti
I personally recommend), garlic rolls, and beer on tap.
In recent years the place has underdone a major transformation in appearance,
and has a strong "trendy" look&feel to it. However, this has not affected
the quality of the food or the prices. There is also now a Leo's Cafe where
you can get espresso, capucino, smoothies, and other treats.
Leonardo's By The Slice is on West University Avenue, right across from
the large Holiday Inn on the corner of University and 13th. Just walk past
the Mobil station and bang, there you are.
Note: There are two other restraunts in Gainesville with a similar
name. One is Leonardo's 706 and the other is Leonardo's Pan Pizza. The
706 store is not owned or operated by the same people as By The Slice.
I have never personally eaten there and can make no recommendations. However,
Leonardo's Pan Pizza is operated by some of the same people as By The Slice
and the food is of excellent quality, with the restraunt being a more traditional
sit-down-and-order sort.
Tony & Pat's Pizza
Tony & Pat's is another old Gainesville pizza joint that serves a really
fantastic pizza buffet, with tukey ministone soup, incredible pasta, garlic
rolls, salad, and of course PIZZA! For a little over six bucks you can
eat all you want. Another buck will buy you a huge glass of soda
or iced tea, with an unlimited number of free refills. They also do carry-out
and even limited delivery. I personally recommend them!
Oh, and you can also usually by a massive bag of day-old garlic roles
for 50 cents. These make great snacks as well as accompaniement with other
meals. If you're a poor student and you live anywhere near Tony & Pat's
Pizza, do yourself a favor and pick-up a bag.
Tony & Pat's Pizza is in the Winn-Dixie shopping plaza on the corner
of 34th and Archer.
Drink
Places to go where you may imbibe in semi-toxic substances.
Entertainment
Some people find Gainesville boring, but these same people tend to spend
a lot of their time buried in a keg of cheap beer.
Hogtown Medeival Faire
The annual Hogtown
Medieval Faire is Gainesville's salute to the better parts of the early
segment of the second millenium. Originally this had a lot more to do with
the local baroney of the SCA but the city wanted something a bit, ah, different.
Movies & Plays
Good places to go to see a flick.
Royal Park Cinema
The Royal Park is an older theatre, and primarily just shows second-run
$1 movies or the more obscure first-run flicks. However, they do have good
deals at the concession stand. You can get a large soda and a huge
bag of popcorn for $5 -- and free refills! Hard to beat that. If
you're not a fussy movie goer in terms of the quality of the theatre or
equipment and/or you enjoy seeing quality, low-budget productions than
this is the place for you.
The Hippodrome
The Hippodrome used to be Gainesville's post office many decades ago. It's
rather large and imposing, but is now a theatrical production center with
multiple plays every season. Many famous plays and musicals have been put-on
at the Hippodrome. They also routinely show movies on the weekends, primarily
"art" or film-noir flicks, but have also brought in major motion pictures
that other theatres in Gainesville decided not to carry. For example, only
the Hippodrome chose to show the recent "Mystery Science Theatre 3000"
movie, and it was only at the Hippodrome you could go see "The Adventures
Of Baron Munchausen" back in 1989.
The Hippodrome is located in downtown Gainesville, only a block or so
away from the Public Library.
Gainesville Community Playhouse
This is the local community playhouse, that puts on productions where everyone
involved are ordinary folks from Gainesville and surrounding cities. No
big-name actors or producers, just ordinary folks. There's quite a few
talented acters, producers, musicians, and other folks and fairly often
you'll see the children of some of the acters on stage with them. The Playhouse
relies soley on contributions from folks in the community, as well as the
efforts of volunteers and of course ticket sales.
The Gainesville Community Playhouse is located on NW 16th Avenue, right
next to the Publix in the Millhopper Shopping Square.
Last Modified: August 10th, 1997
Jeff The Riffer aka Jeff Mercer / riffer@afn.org